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Darwin and Evolution

Insect Wings Are Rainbows of Color
January 9, 2011
Scientists in Sweden have found that a feature of transparent insect wings – their shimmering colors – may have a purpose.  They are not just accidental patterns like the rainbow colors of oil on water, but are stable structures genetically determined for insect recognition and mating.  They call them “wing interference patterns” (WIP) but their […]
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Birds

Never Say Die: Researchers Spend 37 Years Looking for Evolution in Darwin’s Finches
January 5, 2011
The Grants are still at it.  Peter and Rosemary Grant have been studying Darwin’s finches since the 1970s, looking for evidence to support Darwin’s theory of natural selection.  Their latest paper in PNAS produced results that were tentative at best.1     Up front, they had to admit that you can’t see the birds evolving.  […]
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Biomimetics

Beavers: Natural Engineers Do It Better
January 4, 2011
A curious case of biomimetics was reported by Science Daily: engineers imitating beavers.  River restoration is a big project in many states that would like to return their rivers to the way the colonists first found them.  “When engineers restore rivers,” the article began, “one Kansas State University professor hopes they’ll keep a smaller engineer […]
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Fossils

Soft Tissue Fossil Treasure Trove Found in China
December 22, 2010
Live Science announced a major new fossil find in China with some 20,000 fossils.  It was found in a 50-foot thick layer of limestone The fossils are exceptionally well-preserved, with more than half of them completely intact, including soft tissues.  Apparently they were protected across the ages by mats of microbes that rapidly sealed their […]
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Amazing Facts

Plant Wonders Are in the Details
December 16, 2010
When you step on a weed growing out of a crack in the sidewalk, do you have any idea what kind of amazing machinery you stepped on?  Maybe a closer look will help. Communications and switching systems:  When a seed sprouts, it needs to first grow upward in the dark while trying to protect itself.  […]
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Biomimetics

Design Science Scores
December 15, 2010
A team of scientists at Leeds University (UK) led by well-known design scientist Andy McIntosh has won an award for innovative design inspired by nature.  “The team’s work has received the outstanding contribution to innovation and technology title at the Times Higher Education awards in London,” reported the BBC News.     By studying and […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Strange Beasts Walked the Earth
December 13, 2010
Narnia is a fantasy world of talking beasts and chimeric monsters, as seen in the release of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third movie in the series, great for an adventurous escape to a different world (see Narnia.com).  While fauns and minotaurs may be mythical, some of the extinct beasts found as fossils in […]
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Early Man

News on the Mind
December 6, 2010
Here are a dozen recent stories dealing with brains, the mind, perception, motivation and other aspects of psychology and neuroscience. Nature and nurture:  PhysOrg claims that scientists at SMU have resolved the nature vs nurture debate with a hybrid approach.  Whether it satisfies critics remains to be seen.  Perhaps they are still thinking inside the […]
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Mammals

Science Done by Humans Is Mushy
December 3, 2010
Discoveries in science must be mediated by flawed agents: human beings.  Though the most hardened scientific realists maintain strong beliefs in external reality, the perceived reality is mediated by senses, then interpreted by minds that are not omniscient.  Those are some of the reasons that science keeps changing, as illustrated by some recent examples: Endangered […]
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Terrestrial Zoology

Speleology Without Evolution
December 1, 2010
“Steven Taylor, a macro-invertebrate biologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey at the University of Illinois, has spent more than two decades plumbing the mysteries of cave life,” an article said on PhysOrg, based on a press release from the University of Illinois.  The article describes his adventures in tight, dark spots in numerous caves, […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Mammals Partied When Dinosaurs Left
November 29, 2010
A research team headed by a biology professor at the University of New Mexico are claiming that mammals had a field day when the dinosaurs went extinct.  They got bigger and more diverse, filling in the ecological wasteland left by the missing giant reptiles.  Their analysis was published in Science.1     In addition, they […]
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Birds

Struggling to Make Evolutionary Sense
November 23, 2010
Evolutionists love to quote Dobzhansky, who said, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”  But when they go about explaining biological observations, the sense and light seem hard to come by. Biodiversity:  The subject of the emergence of diverse forms of living things seems tailor made for a Darwinian explanation.  Why, […]
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Biomimetics

Let the Birds Teach You
November 22, 2010
The ancient prophet Job said, “But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you; And the birds of the air, and they will tell you” (Job 12:7).  Maybe the birds of the air can tell us how to fly, and the beasts of the sea how to navigate.  Some scientists are trying that without […]
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Amazing Facts

Boggle Your Brain
November 19, 2010
A new animation of a trip through a brain shows mind-boggling complexity in more detail than ever before.  The animation, posted by freelance journalist Elizabeth A. Moore on CNET News, represents years of work by Stanford University School of Medicine.  Using green fluorescent protein in a mouse brain to light up synapses, and photographing the […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Evolutionary Explanations Come Up Empty
November 10, 2010
When evolutionists claim that they have explained the evolution of this or that, or that their research sheds light on its evolution, a closer examination sometimes shows verbiage covering up hollow reasoning, or even employing intelligent design concepts as weapons against design. Snap goes the dragon:  PhysOrg highlighted a research project by some UK biologists […]
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